It is important for all computing systems and packages to be tested for potential problems and failures. Typically, computing systems and their packages can fail in a few ways. One way is standard code bugs. Another way is failure to detect or deal with specific hardware configurations. Currently, most computing systems and packages are tested on a set number of physical systems that are dedicated to the tasks of executing tests and reporting back any errors encountered. These physical systems are bound by the limits of their resources. Also, the physical systems require much manual intervention to set-up the testing environment and oversee their day-to-day running.
On the other hand, a virtualized test farm could be implemented to perform the tasks of the physical test systems described above. A virtualized test farm is not bound by the limitations of the present physical system, but rather is bound by the limits of its virtual systems, such as memory. Unfortunately, a virtualized test farm would be hard pressed to expose the second kind of problem of detecting problems resulting from specific hardware configurations because typically the point of virtualization is to abstract away, or remove, the differences between hardware.
As such, a mechanism to utilize a virtualization system to perform both non-functional and functional testing of computing systems and packages would be beneficial.